Name: Sauce to Be Served with Lettuce
Ingredients: 1 hard-boiled egg yolk; 2 teaspoons ground English mustard; 1 tablespoon sweet cream; 2 tablespoons best olive oil; 1 raw egg yolk; Salt to taste; 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar; 1 hard-boiled egg (yellow and white chopped)

Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sauce to Be Served with Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

Mash the yolk of one hard-boiled egg with a fork.
Mix in 2 teaspoons of ground English mustard and 1 tablespoon of sweet cream.
Add 2 tablespoons of best olive oil drop by drop while stirring well.
Incorporate the yolk of one raw egg.
Season with salt to taste, then add 1 teaspoon of sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar.

Finish

Chop the yellow and white of another hard-boiled egg and add to the sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,816 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolk: Emulsifies the oil into the sauce and adds richness and body.
Olive oil: Provides fat that gives the dressing its smooth, rich body.
Ground english mustard: Helps hold the oil and egg together and adds sharp, pungent flavour.
Sweet cream: Adds fat and moisture that soften the sauce and mellow its sharpness.
Lemon juice or vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Add the olive oil drop by drop while stirring. Oil must be dispersed into the egg and mustard mixture in small amounts. Adding it too fast overwhelms the emulsifiers, so the oil separates and the sauce turns greasy and broken instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, olive, sugar, lemon):

Spinachfits better
Asparagusfits better
Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, olive, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Sauce to Be Served with Lettuce